The Third Life
by RustAndMelancholy
Summary: Where Savita comes from, her people believe that, inside each life, you live many, and each death and rebirth is marked by a lesson learned. In her first, she learned compassion, in her second, vigilance. Her third life begins on the cusp of a war, one she thought she had no place in...until she becomes involved with the very people she swore she'd never cast her lot with.
1. Chapter 1

It was raining. In the early morning light the clouds looked like charcoal, and the movement of water flashed under the streetlights, turning brilliant white as it collided into deep puddles in the streets, traversing in places down gutters and storm drains. Steadily it drummed on all the rooftops, bounced off speeder shells and sidewalks, plunged into the River Hyum, which was predicted to swell three times the size it was now before the peak of monsoon season arrived on the calendar.

Komiqo's capital was a drum the heavens beat down on. With weather like this, hardly anyone was outside. In the trading districts, the midnight shift warehouse workers were taking a dinner break, not expecting relief for another few hours. A woman made tea while she waited for her shower water to heat up. Pleasure district workers, tired or drunk, shambling or stumbling, their various pockets full of money made in the night before, closed their doors on the downpour. Further inland, the Royal Guard patrolled their various walls and corridors, turning a blind eye toward the oldest daughter, smattered with glitter, sleeping her drinks off in a chair outside her rooms.

A father gathered a full trash bag from its can and carried it to the doorway. He checked the time, decided to let his two sons sleep a bit longer, then stepped out, the glossed palms dripping streams of rain onto his shoulders. He lowered the bag into the bin on the curbside, then took a moment, the way he did every morning, to look down his street. Rainboots sat outside every door, the water in the gutters were small creeks that carried stray leaves toward the river. Later today, after school, his boys would take butcher paper and make boats to race down the street. He rubbed some water off his brow, rested his hands on his hips, and looked up at the clouds as though he could gauge how long the storms would last.

What he wasn't expecting was to see the bottoms of ships descending from the sky, ominous and oddly fitting with the weather, black arrowheads pocked against the cloud cover. He watched solemnly, raindrops catching in his eyelashes, as a squad of five craft broke away from one of the ships and shot south toward the Royal Palace, though my nothing in ordinary of it, and started back inside. You could hardly tell the difference between the thunder and the bombs.

-—

How many years was it now? A little over three? Savita hadn't really minded not keeping track. She laid in bed, the datapad balanced on the bottom of her rib cage, and let a huge breath go, blowing it out toward the ceiling. Then she pressed her lips back together, let the datapad fall screen down against her chest.

This was great news. Toritomo was dead. He was fucking dead! Which meant no more dancing in clubs for him and his friends, wearing little pieces of lace. No more smoking his gross hookah. No more gunrunning. Never again would she say something she thought was fine only to find herself against a wall, his hands squeezing her jaw and her neck and his eyes aflame with fury as he shouted her down. He'd never touch her again because he was dead, and what was better, he'd been eaten by a rathtar.

What poetic justice! Savita could've squealed she was so...what was this? Relief? Happiness? She was almost afraid to feel either.

It didn't matter.

As far as she was concerned, her duties to Kanjiklub were fulfilled. She lifted the datapad to activate the message again, from Razoo, no less, who she was sure was shedding precisely zero tears about the situation.

"_Savita," _he couldn't even be bothered with a proper hologram. "_It's me. Tasu and I got back from the mission a few hours ago and I thought maybe you'd want to hear it from me. Tori didn't make it. Solo released the rathtars before we could collect our debt and they wiped us out. Took everyone. We had to leave and regroup, it should be a couple of days before we're back. Don't be there when we do." _He paused like he wanted to say something else, but reached out to switch off the camera. The screen defaulted and brought her back to her notifications page. She played it again.

"Don't be there when we do," she repeated his farewell under her breath when he said it, then pressed pause, searching the screen for a hint of remorse, attachment, anything. Finally she tossed it to the side and sat up. If they wanted her gone, she didn't need to be told twice.

Savita started packing. Her things were in small fractions of Tori's room, a small sliver of closet space for her clothes, some space under her side of the bed for her shoes, a shelf of makeup and hygiene items, carefully crammed together. She left almost all of it. The eyeshadows were cheap and the clothes the airy sorts of things that showed more than they covered, meant to keep ogling eyes on her while Tori and the rest of the Kanjiklubbers did their dirty work. And after each job, Tori would tear it all off.

Her whole body tensed up thinking about it. Phantom pains of his rough treatment came back all at once, the squeezing, the clawing, the pulling, and she slammed the closet closed with the memories.

He was dead. He wouldn't touch her anymore. He couldn't. That was ridiculous.

_And yet…_

No. No more. She opened it again, choosing her more sensible clothes.

Sturdy cargo pants, some shirts and a jacket, scarves, gloves, boots, thick socks-these were the things she took. A toothbrush from the bathroom.

Savita reached under a panel and pushed a switch, opening Tori's secret weapon rack, the one not even Tasu knew about. Big blasters, little ones, in-between sizes, knives, all of it bought with Tori's personal earnings, and none of it would be missed. She took it all. A lot of these were worth money somewhere, she reasoned, settling them neatly into their own bag. Whatever she didn't keep she'd sell for credits. Which reminded her…

Perhaps the most significant item she was taking was the 50,000 in the false panel under the headboard. It was a glossy card in a little wooden box, which dropped neatly into her waiting hand. Again, nothing that would be missed. This was the missing 50,000 from the rathtar job, which Han Solo, whoever he was, had paid back to Tori himself.

"I have something to show you, Vita," Tori had told her as she straddled his hips. His fingers pressed into her thighs, then his touch was gone, reachingbehind him into the headboard. "Close your eyes, hold out your hands."

She had done so, turning over her hands on his naked chest. The card had been warm, the metal oddly heavy for something so thin and tiny. She hadn't realised what it was until he told her, jubilantly, proudly, as though he'd earned those credits himself. She was rendered speechless. When was the last time she'd held something this valuable? Her last life, perhaps.

"There's just a few loose ends to tie up," he explained before she could declare her feelings. He snatched it from her caramel palms, put it away. Savita went back to running her fingertips over his smooth pectorals, the way he liked it. He didn't like it when she was rough...nor when she protested what he did. "Two missions left to really cover it all up. And then, my lovely Vita, we will be free. We can go wherever we want. We could buy a ship with that money."

It was precisely what she planned to do with it. She made the bed, her final act of servitude to Toritomo, and then, with her things packed in bags slung across her shoulders, left a life behind once more.

One public shuttle flight to Corellia later and her boots were on the airtight lot of a shipyard, orbiting the planet itself. She'd heard stories about it, agricultural green lands everywhere on the surface, with warm conditions and torrential rains to feed it all. Looking at pictures reminded her of a place she thought she knew. In another life. But the ring of commerce above it was like any other business Center she'd ever set foot in. Metal, filthy, and absolutely brimming with people looking to spend their money or take another's. The man who sidled up to her looked more like a mechanic than someone who sold them, but Savita knew better from previous dealings. She had picked this place on purpose.

"Lost?" He asked casually, taking in her bags and travel clothes. He was close to her height, with tan skin and black hair poking out from under a bandana.

"No, just looking for a new business investment." Tasu had taught her that. Give them the impression you're seasoned early. This isn't the first ship you've bought and it won't be the last. They'll screw you over less. Not that money was an issue. "I'm looking for something on behalf of an employer, something nondescript and small, but with living space. He emphasised a reasonably sized cargo hold."

The man nodded, thought for a moment, and led her to a small grey square of a ship with fat engines on its sides and a ramp below the cockpit. He motioned for her to board and she stepped into the cargo hold. A ladder led up to what she assumed was the rest of the ship. She motioned to the door next to it.

"Is that the engine room?" He responded by shutting the ramp and leaning against it. Savita tried to keep her cool. "I like the quick close feature." He didn't respond, just stared into her eyes. "I-I should also warn you that this bag is full of blasters."

"What gang are you with?" His voice took on an inquisitive tone, his eyes narrowed, searching.

"That's classified," She said immediately. A mistake.

"Yeah, no gang I've ever dealt with described themselves as 'classified,' errand girl." The man folded his arms. "Are you running from them? Did you steal from them at all? Tell me the truth. This is a safe place."

"You're gonna have to forgive me if I don't believe you. I can take my credits and go to another shipyard with salesmen who aren't as nosy," Savita's tone was suggestive she might actually do it, and she reached for the knife in her jacket. "You're not the only place on my list." He made a face.

"What list?" He wasn't buying it at all. "You don't have a list. You don't have an employer. You're on the run, and you know how I know? I've seen you in here before with Kanjiklubbers. Now, the last thing I want is to have them causing trouble so why don't you just be honest with me?"

She was expecting this. The story hadn't needed to be believable. Savita opened her mouth, then looked down so her eyelashes were on full display. She gripped the strap of her bag a little desperately.

'_I'm a good liar,' _her body language said. '_But not an amazing one. And I'm the way I am because I've seen some shit.' _

"Are…" she looked up at the ceiling. The whites of her eyes glimmered with tears, her mouth was open in the sort of way that grasped for words but also let whoever was looking at her know how full and soft her lips were. "Are you gonna tell them I was here?" A little thickness and defeat in her voice, a bit more jade coloured eye contact and on him? A human man, almost her age, who had maybe been a little too harsh on her? It worked like a charm.

His expression changed to pity. His hands went out in that open sort of way that insisted he wouldn't hurt her. "Hey, no. Okay? I'm here to help. Look does the word Resistance mean anything to you?"

It did. It was why she picked this place over any others because she knew Kanjiklub sold all kinds of artillery and spare parts to this shop. The Resistance took anything. But Savita wanted nothing to do with groups and causes. She ignored the question, let a tear slide free, and brushed it away before he could (and he absolutely did) notice it. "Gods you have- you have no idea…" she shook her head. "It took me forever to get this money, I-," she pressed her lips together, licked them, pursed them, let another tear go down her cheek. "Please, I worked so hard to get away."

"It's okay, hey, you're safe here. I can get you a ship for cheap, I can give you a place to hide, all right? Just calm down. Do you want a drink?"

He led her to a little office off of the bay with a deflated leather couch, some chairs, a table. He gave her a cup of whiskey at her request and she downed it straightaway. After an impressed look, he poured her another and sat down.

"I just need to know if Kanjiklub is looking for you."

Savita was so good at this part. All the games of Two Truths and a Lie she'd won, the tales she had to spin for the men and women she schmoozed for Tasu Leech so he could make his deals. All she had to do was bat her eyes, maybe, show them her straight, white teeth a few times and listen to whatever they said. This guy was in the palm of her hand. She could see it in her eyes, he was wondering- how did a girl like you wind up in a place like this?

"Not right now, but soon. I have um...a day maybe. Before they notice I'm gone."

"Will they know you came here?"

She opened her arms in a shrug. "I don't know. Maybe? They'll just want me, I...I didn't steal from them. The weapons I got myself, the money I earned myself." She really hoped Tori had been right about them not missing those credits.

"Okay. What do you have?"

"Eight thousand." He tilted his head in a knowing way. "Okay, fine, fifteen. I don't need a lot, just a ship with a bed and some cockpit defense and a hyperdrive so I can get away and lay low. I can sell these blasters if it's not enough, if you just give me some time-," he held her hands up to stop her. He liked soothing conflict, he thought he was good at it.

"I can take care of that for you, too. Give them to me, I'll value them, I'll credit it towards a ship. What did you do for Kanjiklub?"

"Um…I only did a few jobs for them, I was just a pretty face they kept around but sometimes I flew shipments for them. I'm not a good pilot, but I can fly. They taught me a few things."

"That's perfect. Here, you choose a ship, I'll fill it with some cargo, you can take it to a Resistance base for me and tell them I sent you. We can always use extra hands, you need a place to disappear, start a new life…" he trailed off, watching her. He smiled. "What do you think?"

For a minute, Savita really, truly considered this. Her eyes slid out of focus. Working for the Resistance. The job security was questionable but for now? It was a decent in-between gig until she could really plan her next move. Plus it gave her an opportunity to explore the Galaxy and find a new home...if that ever actually happened.

"How do I know I can trust you?" She finally said. It was the stupid sort of question she would have asked three years ago when Kanjiklub found her in that drifting ship, starving to death somewhere in the mid rim and still wearing a pair of rose-tinted glasses. It was the kind of question, she learned, that made powerful, protective men look down on women like her and profile them as a fragile beauty trying to play at clever.

And as she expected, he smiled with his white teeth and chuckled, looked down and back up with his whole head, reached into a pants pocket and handed her a dog tag, the kind that disintegrated when you put it on your tongue in case the First Order got ahold of you.

"I'm many things, sweetheart, but I'm not a scoundrel," She looked up to one side at him, an eyebrow raised. "Well, okay. Not anymore."

She ran her thumb over his name, then handed it back. "Okay Poe," she smiled. _I trust you. _"I'm in. Sell me a ship."


	2. Chapter 2

_`A few years earlier….._

Savita was still drunk when she got on the shuttle. Her head spun, and Peme carried most of her weight. Her older sister all but threw her into her seat. She could barely tell whether it was her current trashed state of being making the room spin or the craft taking off from the landing pad. Maybe it was both. She felt sick.

"Peme," She murmured.

"Not now," Peme stood over the shoulder of the pilot and pointed on a navigation screen. "There. Deep core. Coruscant."

"We have to get above the clouds to make the jump," The pilot told her. Her mother grunted out of frustration as she tightened Alomina's harness on the other side of the craft. Savita became aware of several palace guards performing similar rituals, and she feebly fit her arms through her own straps, already knowing the mess of buckles was a lost cause. She tugged to tighten them, then leaned back, trying to get everything to sit still so she could smooth out all the wrinkles in her mind.

After she'd gone to bed, she'd woken up to Peme shaking her, tossing a bag at the foot of her bed. She'd taken a few moments to clear the fog in her head assess that her sister was acting urgently, shuffling in her closet.

"Mm? Peme?"

"We have to leave. Something's happening in the capital- something bad." She held up a pair of heeled, calf-high boots. "These are the most sensible shoes you brought? Really Savita?"

"Well I'm not...a caveman." Savita sat up and rubbed her eyes. She was still very much, without a doubt, sloshed. She noted as a personal victory though, that she had woken up drunker. "Unlike you. What's going on?" Her sister didn't answer, but kept flitting about her closet, loading clothing into her arms.

"Peme? Whaddyou think you're doin?" She'd reached for the covers and somehow missed, collapsed into her soft mattress for a perfect view of her sister in the doorway, wearing riding boots. _So very Peme. _She almost hated her for it.

"Savita are you drunk?" Savita could see the look on her face suddenly, clear as day. The disbelief. The judgement. The _responsibility. _Savita closed her eyes and filed it alongside every other snapshot she had of her sister finding her in similar situations, as she caught her sneaking city boys out of her room, or the time Peme had to collect her from among the confetti and discarded paper fans from a Monsoon's End Festival that, to this day, existed as a haze in her mind. Most recently from three weeks ago when she'd arrived, hungover, for a receival for a terribly handsome baron's son her father had selected to meet her, looked him straight in the eyes, felt her stomach turn, and thrown up on his sandals.

As Alomina- bless her- led her older sister away and her mother furiously made some excuse about how Savita had complained of nerves earlier, she'd caught the same glowering stare of Peme, perfect Peme, who was never late and always knew what to say to make the company nod in approval, through her own watered eyes. Savita knew this look too well.

It was the look that lamented their birth order and relished every lecture she stood off to the side as their father, _the_ King Saoronyu of Komiqo, Vice Admiral of the Crown Regions, who had personally led the treaty negotiations with the New Republic and launched what everyone agreed was a golden age, tried his best to make Savita ready to step into his shoes. It was the look that Savita caught from across the ballroom as she danced with one of the boys her parents urged her to court (really the only two thing she could do exceptionally well-dance and entertain) and it was the look she could count on seeing when she slipped up and said the wrong name and laughed too loud and forgot to wear gloves and enjoyed herself a little bit too much. Make a mistake, find Peme, receive judgment, rinse and repeat.

'_That should be me,' _Peme's look said as she passed university classes with top marks, complete with an invitation to the naval academy. Savita had flunked out two years prior. And still, instead of breaking tradition the way everyone thought he should, the way Savita knew her own mother wanted him to, instead he'd hired one of the professors to tutor her full time until she could recite the name of every mountain and blade of grass on Komiqo and their barons and which provinces grew what. The navy sent her a letter. She made it into a paper airplane and chose mission work, which silenced her devout mother and let her roam the capital the way she wanted. '_That should be me, and everyone knows it.' _

"Savita come on!" Savita came to and, to her intense surprise, she was sitting up, pants on, and Peme was at her feet, trying to force a boot onto her foot.

"I can do it," She reached down to take the boot from her hands. Peme moved away and began depositing the spare travel clothes and jewels into the bag she'd brought.

"We need to hurry."

"Did I forget? I thought the trip home was next week," Savita managed to get both shoes on and slumped to the floor. "Surely we don't have to be out right at sunrise, it's-" She hiccuped and started to try standing. "Our villa after a-"

"Savita for once, shut up," Peme zipped the bag, jerked her sister to her feet, and began to wind a heavy scarf into a makeshift hood on her head. "This is life or death, we have to leave now."

"Okay, just," Peme pulled her toward the door to collect her own bag. "Can you tell me what's going on?"

"Making the jump to lightspeed in five."

Savita's eyelashes fluttered open and there was Peme and her look again, fastening her harness for her just before she slid into the seat to her left. Her mouth felt dry. Her mother was clutching her necklace the way she did when she was upset, which, in Savita's presence, was often, and she was murmuring a prayer. Alomina's eyes were the size of moons. Next to her, Peme was working on a datapad. She caught a video stream and opened it- Savita couldn't help but watch too.

The capital, the palace, the university and its library, the river, was in smoke. The forest temple was a shell. Diamond shaped ships patrolled above, and every now and again, with uncomfortably small intervals, Orange plumes of fire blooming in the trees. Building after building burning. The camera panned down to see a street below and Savita's shifty vision picked out a herd of people all moving in direction. A flash of blue absorbed the screen's view and it went black. Peme hissed out a noise of frustration and began searching for another.

"What are they doing?" Savita asked her sister.

"I don't know," Peme's answer was distant. Savita observed her eyebrows, pulled down in deep concentration as she searched, an imposing profile that she could just about picture on a coin.

She sat back. The city was captured and burning. Distress signals came mere minutes apart from Polutah and Sefwynn, the nearest planets to Komiqo. Her father, who had stayed behind in the city to oversee resettlement of a displaced borough that had fled hurricane level damage on the coast close to the delta, was simply missing. And this fleet? Like nothing they had ever seen. No records matched the sample photos intelligence brought Peme, who had slipped into soldier mode the second she'd woken up to the news.

Savita felt useless, sitting quite inebriated in her seat, surrounded by the house guard and the women in her family, as she fled her planet. She didn't even get to look at it from the window before the ship shot them lightyears away, into Coruscant's outer airspace.

Poe decided to call Maz.

Savita was supervising loading procedures, cradling her personal bag and chewing the nail off of her thumb.

Poe couldn't take his eyes off of her.

She looked so different from months ago, when Tasu Leech and all the rest had landed their freighter in the bay and Toritomo had gotten off with her on his arm, wearing a velvet indigo minidress, a two-sizes-too-big bomber jacket that hung off one deep shoulder, and a silvery headscarf. She'd stared around in wonder at the collection of ships, the vast hangar. Then, Toritomo had picked her up and spun her around and all of that dark, espresso hair came tumbling out of the scarf, her head tilted back in a laugh that seemed to echo off the walls.

The colours in the hangar seemed to brighten. Poe had stopped dead in his tracks. His heart hit the floor.

'_Holy shit.' _Of all the shifts General Organa could have assigned to him for supply running, this was the week she gave him. '_Where in the Galaxy did they find you?'_

He'd realised he was staring when Toritomo set her down, looked over her head, and caught him. A fierce, possessive look crossed his face. He wrapped his arms around Savita's waist, settling his hands on her hips, and buried part of his face in her hair, never breaking eye contact with Poe. The action was clear, decisive, cutting. _This is mine. _Poe had set his mouth in a hard line and (thankfully) Razoo got to him first with a visual manifest of the equipment Kanjiklub was dropping off. Poe paid them, never made eye contact with her or Toritomo once, and then sent them on their way.

Now he sighed and searched for Maz's contact number. "This has been a weird damn week," he murmured, and waited for her to pick up, looking out the window again, at her combat boots and her baggy jacket, her knit green scarf. He rested his head on his hand. "Oooohhh...I'm screwed." He wished, not for the first time, that BB-8 was here so he could share this sentiment with him. A few moments passed and he realised Maz was watching him.

"Should I wait?" she asked, teasing.

"Maz, hey, sorry. I'm sending you someone for a cargo run, a new recruit. Ex-Kanjiklub member. She's…" He tried thinking about how to describe her.

"Gorgeous? You're a lover, Dameron, I swear it. Ex-Kanjiklub, did you say?"

"Yeah, a runaway I think. She said they might be looking for her. I figured I'd give you a heads up, tell you I sent her. Expect her within the day with weaponry and some raw supplies."

"Alone?"

"I have to get back to the Ileenium System for a mission report. Sikar will be with her in the cargo bay."

"And you can't also come by and say hello? Poe Dameron," Maz shook her head. "How are you so sure this girl won't run off with our supplies?"

"Kanjiklub sells to us, why would they steal supplies back? I don't think she's working for them anymore, this isn't the first time I've seen her. If they really wanted their stuff back they would have just shown up and taken it, not sent a girl. And anyway, it's just a few blasters and some supplies for the cantina. Nothing important."

"Hm." Maz considered this. "Fine. Send her to me and I'll see what I make of her. Promise me something though," He nodded. "Don't get attached. We have a war we're about to enter, and we need you here, focused. Now isn't the time for hunches and soft spots. Clear judgement, Dameron, from here on."

"Of course," Poe nodded again. "I absolutely understand, Maz. I'm putting her in your hands."

Maz said her goodbyes and Poe leaned back, drummed his fingers on the table. It was so unfortunate, he thought, that it was much too late to guard his heart.

—-

"Do you uh…" Savita turned and saw Poe holding a small blaster, a pistol, really, apprehensively toward her. "Do you know how to shoot?"

"Of course," She answered, and he held it out for her to take.

"A fresh start deserves a new weapon," the Resistance fighter told her. She fit her hand on the grip and tested its weight, sighting down . Suddenly she was back in one of Kanjiklub's firing ranges, draped in loose clothes and still trying to fill out her skeleton from when they'd found her, back when Toritomo was still a worldly savant in her eyes.

"Do you know how to fire a blaster?" He'd asked, and when she shook her head, he stood up, unholstered his, and held out his hand.

"What?" She was scared to move from her chair, piled with blankets so she was comfortable. Tori was so concerned with her comfort in the beginning.

"I'm gonna teach you," he said, curling his fingers twice, beckoning. "Come on. It'll be fun."

"Ah…" Savita laughed nervously. "I don't know."

"Sweet Savita," he dropped his arms to his sides. "If you want to stay, you have to learn. I can't always be the one protecting you," Tori leaned down, tucked some of her hair behind her ear. His fingertips lingered on her jawline, tracing to her chin. Never losing her gaze, he stood back up and held his hand out again. "I'm a great teacher," he insisted.

Savita smiled up at him, and then she gave in. This was the man who had carried her from her death,helped nurse her back to health. He had convinced Tasu Leech that she had a place here. When she was nothing.

"Okay then," she reached for him, let him guide her to the line that was long marked off on the floor, and obeyed when he instructed her to take the safety off, to put it back on, to hold it away from herself and stand with her feet apart.

"Like this," his voice was almost in her ear as he eased her legs open with his foot, his hands steady on her hips. "Now raise the blaster, hold it out, remember, sight through one eye. Aim for the red circle, for his head," his hands moved to the middle of her back, and her diaphragm.

"When I tell you, you're going to breathe in, and on the breath out, you squeeze the trigger. Don't pull it with your index finger, think about squeezing it with your whole hand. These ones don't have any kickback, so just focus on aiming. Are you ready?"

Savita nodded, her body trained on the target.

"Okay, take the safety off like I showed you," Tori moves behind her and she reached with her thumb to flip it off. "Good," his hand was still on her diaphragm. "Now breathe in slow, and when you're ready, exhale, take the shot."

It was the noise that startled her, made her step back into Tori, his arms trapping her to him. She lowered the blaster and looked down at her target, where a scorch mark steamed at the collarbone.

"Not bad," he leaned down and kissed her neck. "Let me help you, though. Aim again." Savita did, and Tori's hands glided down her arms, helping her guide the blaster up a touch, then he withdrew just as slow, come to rest in a hug around her abdomen. "Now breath in with me…and out." She fires again, and this time, the mark landed on where she assumed the ear and the cheekbone would be.

"Oh!" Savita gasped in surprise. "I did it."

"You're a trained killer," Tori declared, and she turned in his arms and stretched up to kiss him on the mouth. That was the first night they'd gone to his bed and Tori had wrapped a hand around her throat, ignoring her protests, her tearing grasp, and squeezed her like the trigger of a blaster. He'd apologised afterwards. He said he'd never do it again. Savita could still feel every time like it had just happened.

She passed it to one hand and reached up to touch the back of her neck with the other, batting the memories away. She looked up to Poe, watching, no, studying her, and she smiled a weak, grateful smile. "Thank you."

Poe Dameron just nodded. "Anytime."

Later, on the ship, _her new ship_, she set the blaster on a clear spot on the control panel and let Takodana's gravity pull her into orbit. She propped her elbows on a ledge.

_Savita, Resistance fighter. No last name, just Savita, thank you very much. What do I do, you ask? Why I- _

Savita drew a blank.

_What would I do for them?_

She pictured herself on a stage, with a pole or a pair of silk fans, swaying her hips for Poe Dameron and the Resistance's soldiers, loosening the buttons of a First Order officer's coat. She shut her eyes. No. That life was over. Joining a political movement hadn't even been in her cards, she was avoiding this.

_Contract work. We answer to ourselves now. _

Savita pushed her ship into Takodana's atmosphere and put in the coordinates Poe had given her, excusing the familiarity of the landscape and jetting toward a very old looking, very grand looking, stone castle. She touched down at a landing site and watched the Twi' lek shiphand Poe had insisted tag along give a manifest to a human woman, who motioned for a team to start helping unload.

She moved past them to get some fresh air and took some time to admire the lake the castle looked over. A breeze brushed over her face. She turned into it, then twisted further to acknowledge the woman who took the manifest coming towards her.

"Maz Kanata should like to speak to you," she said it like an order. Savita had expected this. She practiced what she might say as she followed the woman into the castle, slowing out of necessity more than amazement as they walked by race after race of the Galaxy's apex sentients, all huddled over tables, clustered in groups, sprawled on sofas.

'_All Are Welcome. No Fighting.' _It was etched in every language she'd ever seen and never seen before on the main hall.

The woman left her at a table occupied by only one other being.

"Maz Kanata?" Savita ventured.

"I'd certainly hope so," the pirate responded. "Just as I hope you're Savita."

"That's me."

"Then sit. I hear you come from Kanjiklub. What did you do for them? You're not really the type of girl they employ."

"Kanjiklub doesn't employ women, period."

"So we understand each other," A droid brought a tray of water and a brown bread covered with nuts to the table. "Were you a lover then?"

Savita moved her cup closer to her, but didn't drink. "I suppose that's the nicest way to say it. One of their members found me on a drifting ship a while back and convinced Tasu Leech I was worth something. I mostly danced and distracted men. Sometimes I flew contraband."

"And now you're here."

"My sponsor was eaten by a rathtar. Tasu didn't want me there anymore," She held her hands up like it was as simple as that, then braved a sip of water.

"What is it you're expecting to do for the Resistance?" Maz clasped her hands together.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

Savita made her decision. "Poe Dameron gave me this job in exchange for a ship. I think he offered it to me because I don't have a home anymore but…" Savita let some silence pass, then shrugged. "I don't want to be involved in political disputes. I'm sorry if you were expecting anything."

"Well," Maz Kanata took off her goggles and leaned back. "That's a relief."

Savita blinked. "Excuse me?"

"My dear, this journey you're on, the one you've been on, it's far from over."

"What are you, a fortune teller?"

"No." Maz hopped off of her stool. "Walk with me."

Against her better judgement, she obeyed, following the humanoid out of the main hall and up a staircase, which spiralled up past rooms laden with...trove upon trove of curios. Every doorway promised wonder, a good stare, and behind it, Savita was sure, a story in each piece. They climbed up, and up, and up, were there really this many levels in this castle?

"Where are you taking me?"

"You're asking the wrong questions." Maz stopped at the top of the staircase.

"An observatory," Savita couldn't help but wander in. The whole ceiling was painted in an ancient style mapping what Savita assumed was the night sky from here. The walls were covered with maps of systems, some so old and yellow that Savita suspected a touch would crumble the paper. At the center of the room was a huge viewfinder, built of a brass coloured metal Savita affiliated with old things. She'd never seen one so grand.

"You have encountered many in your time with Kanjiklub?" Savita's lowered gaze was enough of an answer. "I thought not. Where do you come from, Savita?"

"The Unknown Regions, in the northwest sector. I was young when I left, I don't recall the name." Savita watched her cross from the doorway to the viewfinder's control panel and begin adjusting them nonsensically.

"And what did you do in between those two events?"

"I lived briefly on some various planets. Working from a young age on my own, I...got a taste for the finer things in life." Silence. "And I thought Kanjiklub might give that to me." Still no response. "I was...wrong."

Maz looked up from her pecking and glance through the eyepiece, then twisted a dial, seeming to focus on something. Savita dared not move until she spoke again.

"I am very old. In case you wondered. I've seen more war and unrest than I like to admit, and I've met more people in my life than I have cells in my body. I've sat alongside many deathbeds, and I've heard enough final words to fill books. Let me offer you some unsolicited advice." She looked down from the eyepiece. "Some time from now you will die. Don't give me that look, it's what's destined for all of us. You will die, and when you're at the end of it all, you'll have some time to look over the life you've lived and you, not anyone else, will get to truly judge whether the life you gave was worth everything."

"That's very philosophical." Maz's smile was curt and knowing. She motioned to the lense.

"Take a look." A few steps across the room and she was there. Savita bent forward to peer in, let her eyes adjust to the light. She almost didn't recognise what she was looking at. A green and blue circle filled the viewfinder, and there, just below the circumference, running south, was a thin, glimmering vein of light that spidered out into five fingers, like a hand, all pointing to a vast sea. Savita felt like the hand was closing around her throat. She couldn't look away. To her right, she heard Maz.

"If you died right now, would you think it was worth it? The joy and the adventure? The bliss?" The girl turned her head to glare at Maz, but all the pirate queen saw was a heartbroken girl. She continued, "Was it all worth it? The pain? Savita? The loss?"

"You do not get to do that," Savita straightened, her fingers brushing the polished wood until they hung by her sides. "We are not friends, I don't give you permission to try and deduce what's happened to me. I've done my job, I'm leaving. Send Poe Dameron my thanks and nothing more."

"My dear, I know what's happened to you." Savita started for the door.

"You do not."

"I do." Maz held up a hand. Savita stopped. "You, Your Majesty, have lost your way. I'm simply here to help you find it."

"You overstep your bounds, Madam Kanata. It was never my way to wear a crown." The girl began her journey down the steps.

"One day I hope you learn that the best rulers never have to," Maz said, but it was to the still air hanging around her, and nothing more.


End file.
